Trusting Chance

The weather has turned nice and the onset of summer is floating on the wind. Baseball, swimming lessons, summer break and running through the sprinklers are all right around the corner.

Actually, running through the sprinklers is a thing of the present if you are Chance and his friends. Sure the temperature may only be in the low 60's, but one can never pass an opportunity to run through the sprinklers when they beckon you to come play with them.
Some of our neighbors have a big "bowl" in their backyard. Their yard is used to collect rainwater etc. when it rains. Yesterday these neighbors had their sprinkler going in their backyard. It was one of those that rotates back and forth from side to side. The owner of the home told the kids they could run through the sprinkler as long as they didn't move it. So Chance, his brother and his friends were beside themselves with joy as they ran down the sides of the bowl and into the sprinkler.

I went on a walk to get the mail and watched the boys for a minute. Chance did not have his implants on, as we (meaning his dad and I) have decided against telling him that his implants could actually stand the water. There are kids running all over, if an implant comes off and someone steps on it.....I don't want the neighbors to see me cry.

I walked up to Chance who was lying with his friends on the driveway to suck up heat from the cement. I asked him where his implants were. He said that they were over by his shoes and pointed around the back of the house. (We communicate with sign or lip reading when Chance's implants are off).

Big deep breath from me.

I have to trust that Chance can track his implants. He loves them and knows how important they are in his being able to hear and he takes very good care of them. It is just that when you have a group of kids together playing, and there is water, and frolicking and horseplay.......I don't know that any of the kids will be thinking to themselves,"Wow! We had better keep a lookout for Chance's implants and be sure not to step on them! We might see Chance's mom and dad cry should anything happen to them!"

There are some alternatives: One, Chance takes off the implants before he gets near the sprinklers. If he is running through our sprinklers this is clearly the way to go. Even if he is across the street this is the way to go. He does come in and hand me his implants sometimes when there are water gun fights or he is getting ready to run through the sprinklers. Or he'll come put them on the cupboard next to the storage box they go in at night. This neighbor lived at the end of the street though, and all the boys were riding their bikes down together. I don't want Chance to be left out of the conversations and interactions because he has left his implants at home.

Second, I can listen attentively all summer for the swishing sound of water in the neighborhood and start tailing Chance where ever he goes. Of course we'll also need to start saving for the therapy Chance will need when he is older and he needs to tell someone about how his mom followed him everywhere when he was a child. I kind of already did that when Chance got his hearing aids. We lived in a new neighborhood and everyone was putting in their sprinkler systems and turning them on to test them. Then everyone got new sod or seed and ran the sprinklers often to water the grass or seed. It was heaven for little kids to be able to ride their bikes down the sidewalk and get wet and throw off their shirts and dash through the sprinklers whenever the opportunity presented itself. Chance wanted to follow the crowd as is expected. Since the hearing aids were so new, and Chance had not been hearing for the past 2 years, we were not at a point of communication where I could explain to that Chance he could not go through any water with out asking me. So, I just tracked him. If I heard the swoosh of sprinklers going on, I dashed to where the kids were and took off Chance's hearing aids and held them until he was done playing in the water.

Chance will have to be responsible for his implants. I will have to trust him. Chance does a good job, and I know that he would never purposely be careless with them. This is just one of those lessons that you don't want to have end up paying $12,000 to correct should something go wrong and the implants get damaged :)